ANTIOCH, Tenn. — Far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) decried the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration on Saturday, claiming that America was shocking people around the world because of ICE raids.
Omar made the comments during a town hall at Cane Ridge High School just outside of Nashville where she called for universal healthcare, reducing military spending, and for ICE agents to be banned from wearing masks while conducting immigration enforcement operations.
“The reality is when they come from one of us, they’re eventually going to come for all of us,” she said in front of a crow of several hundred seated in a school auditorium. “We’re seeing people be abducted and sent to dungeons in foreign countries and people disappearing with no accounting for where they’ve gone.”
Organizers of the town hall made their opposition to ICE clear, posting a sign with the words “ICE not permitted on the premises” written in all caps on the doors to the venue. There were also flyers saying “Nashville stand with Ilhan” posted all over the publicly funded high school.
NEW: Covering far Left Democrat Rep Ilhan Omar’s townhall at a public high school outside of Nashville. ICE is not welcome, according to the organizers. pic.twitter.com/d9r9wofoE5
— Leif Le Mahieu (@leif_lemahieu) July 12, 2025
Omar also decried the recent passage of Trump’s signature spending and tax cut package, which she referred to as the “big ugly bill.” The legislation included billions of dollars in funding to hire more ICE agents and improve ICE facilities.
She asserted that ICE agents should not be allowed to conduct enforcement operations while wearing masks and that the people around the world were shocked to see videos and photos of ICE operations.
“When they see these kinds of images coming out of America. To them it is really shocking and it should be to all of us as Americans” she said. “That is not us.”
In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security has reported a surge in assaults against ICE officers. In the last month, gunmen have opened fire on federal immigration agents in two separate attacks in Texas.
The rally drew many Nashville-area residents eager to show their opposition to Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) and the Trump administration.
Joy Guss, an employee with Metro Nashville Public Schools, said her main concerns with the Trump administration were its immigration policies and the government funding cuts recommended by the Department of Government Efficiency. She said that local ICE raids were “terrorizing our children” and that she had seen a dramatic drop in school attendance among Latino students.
Julia, a woman from California who moved to Tennessee eight years ago, said that she was “extremely distraught” about the state of the country under Trump and said that she was opposed to immigration workplace raids.
During the town hall, Omar repeatedly attacked Ogles, who represents the area. The high school is located in a predominantly blue area southeast of Nashville. Ogles was elected to a second term in 2024 with nearly 60% of the vote, drawing much of his support from the conservative rural and suburban counties that surround Nashville.
Omar was joined at the rally by Democrat state Rep. Justin Jones, an activist lawmaker who described ICE raids conducted in Nashville in early May as kidnappings and compared ICE to the KKK.
Of the 196 arrested during the raids referenced by Jones, 95 had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges and another 31 had previously been deported. Those arrested included those convicted of rape and serious drug charges.
